As the volume of data that is stored and accessed by a computer system or network increases, effective management of the system's storage capacity resources becomes increasingly important. Effective management of the compute resources (e.g., microprocessors) that are used to access the storage capacity resources also becomes increasingly important.
In the past, efforts to improve storage management have associated particular storage applications with particular storage capacity resources. For example, a storage application that is used to store/access new or frequently changed data might be associated with a first set of storage capacity resources, including one or more hard disks or random access memory (RAM) disks; a storage application that is used to backup data might be associated with a second set of storage capacity resources that include an additional one or more hard disks; and a storage application that is used to archive data might be associated with magnetic tape media, or a hard disk that is managed as magnetic tape media. A management system driven by computer-readable program code (e.g., firmware or software) may determine which storage applications are best associated with which storage capacity resources, and may reallocate or share storage capacity resources to/with different storage applications.
Efforts to improve storage management have also associated particular storage applications with particular compute resources. For example, a first set of compute resources might be allocated to support primary storage applications, such as those that are used to store/access new or frequently changed data; a second set of compute resources might be allocated to support secondary storage applications, such as those that are used to backup or archive data; and a third set of compute resources might be allocated to support tertiary storage applications, such as those that are generally used to archive data to removable or off-site media.
Despite the above efforts, additional and more effective ways to manage a system's storage and compute resources are desired.